Investing in US Leadership Budget Cuts Are Threatening America's Ability to Make a Difference in the World

Article excerpt

When our administration took office in 1993, we faced an array
of challenges that required urgent attention. Russia's democracy
was in crisis; its economy was near collapse. The nuclear arsenal
of the former Soviet Union was scattered among four new countries
with few safeguards. The war in Bosnia was at the peak of its
brutality and threatening to spread. North Korea was developing
nuclear weapons. The Middle East peace process was stalemated.
Repression in Haiti was pushing refugees to our shores. NAFTA's
passage was in serious doubt, threatening our relations with the
entire hemisphere.

Step by step we have resolved these pressing questions and built
an enduring basis for our engagement in a more secure and
prosperous world. Because of our military and economic might,
because we are trusted to uphold universal values, there are times
when only the United States can lead. We must lead not because the
exercise of leadership is an end in itself but because it is
necessary to advance the interest and ideals of our great nation.

This is the central lesson of our era. Because the US led, a
century that was never safe for democracy is ending with peace and
freedom ascendant. The end of the cold war has only strengthened
the imperative of US leadership. The need for US leadership is
rarely questioned in our country. Yet today our ability to lead is
in question. The biggest crisis facing our foreign policy today is
whether we will spend what we must. Since 1985 our spending on
international affairs has been slashed by 50 percent in real terms.
Our budget for foreign affairs is now just over 1 percent of the
overall federal budget.
The amazing thing is these cuts have not been accompanied by any
serious congressional debate. They have not been motivated by any
reassessment of our interests in the world. Everyone is for US
leadership in principle. Some people just think we can have it
without paying the price. As a result, we are endangered by a new
form of isolationism that demands American leadership but deprives
America of the capacity to lead.
A voice in every nation
One casualty of inadequate resources will be the principle of
universality in our representation abroad - the principle that
there should be a US mission in virtually every country. Budget
cuts have forced us to close more than two dozen consulates and
several embassies.
In the last few years we have seen over and over again how vital
our presence can be, often at unexpected times in unexpected
places. More than 170 nations, from Albania to Zambia, had an equal
say in extending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and approving
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - and an equal need to be
persuaded by on-the-spot American diplomacy.
We could not have negotiated the Dayton peace agreement if we
had not had embassies in each of the former Yugoslav republics. …